XIAM007

Tuesday, 16 February 2010

Watching - VETERAN BBC presenter tells TV viewers that he killed his lover - on show which was aired on Monday night -

Update - BBC broadcaster Ray Gosling was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of murder after he confessed on television to killing a lover who was dying of AIDS.

Nottinghamshire Police started an investigation Tuesday after Gosling’s admission on the BBC East Midlands program "Inside Out" on Monday night that he killed his young partner more than 20 years ago.

Gosling said that he would refuse to cooperate with a police investigation and would not tell detectives the name of the man he claimed to have smothered with a pillow as he lay in the hospital.

"I’m not going to tell anything," said Gosling, 70, when asked whether he had considered that he might go to jail over his admission.

"There are different kinds of law, you know. There’s a law that’s written in law books and there’s a law in your heart... Different laws carry different weights at different times."

The veteran gay rights campaigner said that the killing was in the "very, very early days of AIDS," which suggests the mid-1980s.

"They [the police] will not know when, where, not a thing," Gosling said. "What’s the point of telling them? It was a private pact between us." S

The freelance presenter has denied suggestions that he made up the claim and said that he had informed some of his lover’s relatives about the killing.

A VETERAN BBC presenter will be interviewed by detectives after he told TV viewers he carried out a mercy killing on a former male lover who was suffering from Aids.

During a pre-recorded show which was aired on Monday night, award-winning documentary maker Ray Gosling, 70, revealed he smothered the unnamed man as he lay in hospital “in terrible, terrible pain”.

A spokeswoman for Nottinghamshire Police yesterday confirmed the force was not aware of the issue until the broadcaster made his revelation on BBC East Midlands’ Inside Out programme.

She said: “We are now liaising with the BBC and will investigate the matter.”

The BBC said it would “co-operate fully” with the police investigation.

Mr Gosling, who refused to reveal the man’s identity, said he was not “making a cause” of assisted dying but said there was a case for changing the law.

Yesterday he said: “Sometimes doctors do it on their own. Sometimes people do it on their own.

“And if it happens to a lover or friend of yours, a husband, a wife – and I hope it doesn’t – but when it does sometimes you have to do brave things and you have to say – to use Nottingham language – bugger the law.”

During the 30-minute programme, Mr Gosling said: “Maybe this is the time to share a secret that I have kept for quite a long time.

“I killed someone once... He was a young chap, he’d been my lover and he got Aids.”

Strolling through a graveyard, he broke down as he recalled: “In a hospital one hot afternoon, the doctor said, ‘There’s nothing we can do’, and he was in terrible, terrible pain. I said to the doctor ‘Leave me just for a bit’ and he went away.

“I picked up the pillow and smothered him until he was dead. The doctor came back and I said ‘He’s gone’. Nothing more was ever said.”

Mr Gosling said he had no regrets about his actions. Asked what he would say to police if he was questioned he replied: “Nothing. It is a private matter.” Sarah Wootton, of Dignity in Dying, said: “This case yet again demonstrates that this is a real and present problem, which can affect us all. The law is out of step with what society needs and wants.”

A spokes man for Care Not Killing said it was “irresponsible” that the BBC had not told authorities earlier, as the show was recorded in November.

“Instead [it] made the decision to make it international news just before the Director of Public Prosecutions releases his assisted suicide prosecution guidelines,” he said.

Aiding or abetting another person’s death is illegal under the 1961 Suicide Act, and punishable by up to 14 years in jail.

Prenatal exposure to the endocrine-disrupting chemical bisphenol A (BPA) may increase aggressive behavior in toddler girls, according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and published in the journalEnvironmental Health Perspectives.

Researchers measured bodily levels of BPA in 249 pregnant women, then followed their daughters for two years. Children who had been exposed to the highest levels of the chemical before the 16th week of gestation had significantly higher scores on tests for aggression than girls of the same age with less exposure.

The study is the first to examine the effect of BPA on behavior in human children. It is consistent with the results of prior animal studies, which have also found that BPA can affect the brain and reproductive system. The National Toxicology Program concluded in 2008 that there was evidence to support the chemical's effects on human children.

Because BPA mimics the effect of estrogen, which plays a critical role in the male brain during the 11th and 12th weeks of pregnancy, researchers believe that the chemical might be "masculinizing" the female brain.

"In the developing brain, timing is everything," said neuropsychiatrist Louann Brizendine, author of The Female Brain.

"I'm worried that tiny amounts of this stuff, given at just the wrong time, could partly masculinize the female brain."

Although the study found no change in male behavior and no increase in behavioral disorders among girls, scientists noted that the population effects may be much greater than those seen in the study. Michelle Macias, spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics, noted that children in the study came from predominantly well-educated families, which tend to have lower aggression and hyperactivity rates than the average. In addition, neurologist David Bellinger noted that a population can become more aggressive as a whole without there being strong observable effects in individual children.

Goldman Sachs struck a secret deal with Greece to help it mask its vast debts, it emerged yesterday.

The Wall Street giant is claimed to have reaped as much as £192million in fees by entering a complex currency transaction in 2001 that helped Athens borrow cash without putting it on the books as a loan.

Fiscal talks: Eurozone finance ministers meet in Brussels yesterday as the Eurogroup. They are expected to back an exceptional measure to instill budgetary discipline in GreeceGreece's vast deficits caused it to fail the criteria for joining the single European currency in 1999, but it succeeded in 2001.

Member nations had to reduce their budget deficit to less than 3 per cent of gross domestic product and trim national debt to less than 60 per cent of GDP.

The Greek deficit stands at nearly 13 per cent of GDP and public debt is almost twice the official ceiling at 113 per cent of GDP.

Under the deal between Goldman and Greece, the country's government effectively obtained a £640million loan without adding to its public debt burden.This was achieved because the arrangement was treated as a 'currency trade'.

The allegations prompted uproar in Europe, where ministers are meeting to discuss a possible Greek bailout.

New storm: Goldman Sachs helped mask Greece's debtsBut the Goldman arrangement is thought to be just one of many that helped mask the full scale of Greece's fiscal chaos.Other Mediterranean countries, including Italy, have resorted to similar tactics.

The disclosures triggered questions in Parliament yesterday over whether the UK Government has entered any 'swap' arrangements curbing its debt burden.

Goldman Sachs declined to comment last night.The bank has come under steady fire over its role in the sub-prime crisis and the vast bonuses being doled out to employees. Last month it set aside £10billion for its staff's performance in 2009.

The revelations come at a hugely damaging time, given fears that Greece is in danger of defaulting on its debts.Yesterday the euro fell another 0.3 per cent to 1.36 against the dollar.

Finance minister Georges Papaconstantinou admitted his country was in 'a terrible mess' as he arrived in Brussels for the talks with fellow ministers.

He sent tremors through the markets by comparing the task of fixing Greece's deficits to 'changing the course of the Titanic'.

The suggestion that his country turned to investment such as Goldman to shroud the full extent of its debts will trigger particular fury in Germany, where taxpayers face the unappetising prospect of leading a Greek state rescue.

Conservative MP Michael Fallon said: 'How much confidence can we have in any progress reported from Greece when they (the EU authorities) have already failed to pick up fiddles like this?'

MPs will question Goldman Sachs director Gerald Corrigan on the deal when he appears before the Treasury Committee on Monday, Mr Fallon said.

Yesterday he tabled a Parliamentary question asking the Chancellor whether Britain was party to similar dealings with investment banks.

A Treasury spokesman said: 'The UK does not use swaps of any type for debt management purposes and has not done so under the current arrangements for debt management.'

However, Britain is known to have moved billions of pounds of liabilities off the government books through mechanisms such as the public finance initiative.

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